I would plan to run a guy line off the top of the arch on each end and between the arched-spans over the tarp to prevent ballooning.

Tarp is going to trap wind much more readily than shade material. Try to find tarp with grommets 18" apart. That distributes the forces much more effectively than the typical 30" spread. Your zip ties better be very robust.

Last edited by Trishntek on Tue Aug 07, 2012 4:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I am just zip tying my tarp to the monkey but, but the more guy lines the better, just make sure people don't trip over them or the re-bar you tie them to. I've seen some with lines going in a V pattern between each PVC rib. The better tied down it is the less you will worry about chasing a monkeyhut across the playa at 4 in the morning.

The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.

Lightweight shade cloth is pushing the limits of a PVC "structure" like that. Don't believe me, try building something like that on the beach on a windy summer afternoon and covering it with a cheap vinyl tarp.

I guy mine to the playa on the front of the hut, and in the rear it's tied to the van's roof rack. I also run rope along the bottom zig-zagging through the tarp, that rope is tied off to rebar at the corners of the hut. edit to add: with the en-pending doom, I'm stepping up the quality and size of the guying rope.

Depending upon how the wind blows, it will be an inefficient parachute or an inefficient airfoil. Either way, it flies.Guy line the fuck out of it. You need to field test the shade fabric, cause it looks like it can shred. Get heavy duty shade cloth, the beige plastic shit you can get at a hardware store works well. Zip tie the fabric to the rebar foundation, cause it will slip. Grommet every 1'. Heavy walled PVC should hold, thin walled will bend.

Gonzo FrothwoodDept of Over-Engineering"Poor planning leads to enlightenment for the next event"

"There is nothing so over-estimated as a piece of ass, and nothing so under-estimated as a good and greasy shit." Boneman Johnson

First of all, thank you all for all the input!! Clearly this does need at the very least the basic guy lines.

Trishntek wrote:I would plan to run a guy line [...] and between the arched-spans over the tarp to prevent ballooning.

Tarp is going to trap wind much more readily than shade material. Try to find tarp with grommets 18" apart. That distributes the forces much more effectively than the typical 30" spread. Your zip ties better be very robust.

Sorry.. was just having a little trouble visualizing that. You mean like this, with the cyan and magenta being rope? Please bear with my horrible drawing:

As far as the tarp goes, it does have grommets every 18 inches. Think double zip-tying would do the trick? Bungee balls like this? Any thoughts? Thanks again!

The stretch of the bungee balls provide too much give. They are very handy for a variety of tasks, but you need attachments that are firm.

The rope between the arches was meant to run parallel with the arches. A single rope across the top, side to side, from a stake on one side to a stake on the other side.

BEFORE running those, and before placing your tarp, run a single rope from a stake in the ground on one end and tie it to the end arch, at the apex. THEN tie it to each arch, at the apex for the entire length of the shelter and finally to another stake in the ground inline from the opposite end of the shelter. This should create a tense hold on the arches to stabilize them in relation to each other and with the ground so it has remarkable rigidity.

THEN, as you place your tarp and tie it on the ends and down the sides, it will not be quite so wiggly and unmanageable. After your tarp is placed, finish it with a single rope, side-to-side, stake-to-stake between each arch. These ropes do not have to be uber tight, just sufficient to prevent your tarp from "ballooning" full of air inside and creating lift to your flight potential.

We successfully used bungee balls to secure a heavy silver extra-grommetted tarp to our monkey hut in 2009. Their bungees were shorter than those shown above, and we wrapped them enough times to get 'em snug.

*** 2017 Survival Guide ***"I must've lost it when I was twerking at the trash fence." -- BBadger

We're going w/ bungee balls this year too. Last year we attached our tarps w/ zipties. That seemed both wasteful and provided no flex. Part of the design of the monkey hut / PVC shade structure is to allow a little flexibility which reduces the overall load it needs to bear. The small flex of the bungee balls should help with this and they're much less moopy in general.

This appears to be very similar to a Monkey Hut (http://www.chromatest.net/Lovemonkey/), which I used last year. It was pretty successful, but the weather was also very mild... According to this thread, though, the Monkey Hut is a terrible idea because it uses bungee balls and the like? I'm a bit confused, and now a bit more worried about my shade overall. I already planned on tying the hut down to my car, and rebaring it in the front, and I even bought a new tarp that would fit much better on to my structure, but... Fuck, now I'm convinced my hut is going to become a suicide sail cruising down the playa on day one... Maybe I should run bungee balls AND rope rigging through the grommets, and somehow scrape more money together for even more rebar to keep it down? I planned on having two in the front, maybe I should do more?

Ano wrote:This appears to be very similar to a Monkey Hut (http://www.chromatest.net/Lovemonkey/), which I used last year. It was pretty successful, but the weather was also very mild... According to this thread, though, the Monkey Hut is a terrible idea because it uses bungee balls and the like? I'm a bit confused, and now a bit more worried about my shade overall. I already planned on tying the hut down to my car, and rebaring it in the front, and I even bought a new tarp that would fit much better on to my structure, but... Fuck, now I'm convinced my hut is going to become a suicide sail cruising down the playa on day one... Maybe I should run bungee balls AND rope rigging through the grommets, and somehow scrape more money together for even more rebar to keep it down? I planned on having two in the front, maybe I should do more?

Nobody is dissing a monkey hut. The OP did not want to build the typical monkey hut because it would be too large. As-far-as bungee balls go, I use about 600 of them on my shade structure. But it is a rigid structure made out of steel pipe and nailed into the playa.

I understand the beauty of "give" for something like a monkey hut. I've seen them do very well and simply suggest robust zip ties over bungee balls for a smaller diameter PVC.

That is what the OP asked about. He is thinking smaller than monkey hut and that is the context of my comments.

You can do it with bungee balls.You can do it with parachute cord.You can do it with sash rope.You can do it with zip ties.You can do it with clothesline.You can do it with shoelaces.You can do it with cat gut.You can do it with orange baling twine.You can do it with leather thongs.You can do it with dental floss.

The DPW fence crew uses miles of orange baling twine for the trash fence. The Cafe crew has been known to use it for lacing their grommeted shade tarps to steel cables when they run out of zip ties. Costs less than a cent per foot.

You aren't the Cafe, so it would be wise to bring two or three times the cord, stakes and such that you think you need. Test your setup beforehand, preferably more than a few hours before your hipster adventure resort vacation begins. Bring whatever, just bring something. It should fit in a stuff sack. Stop your sobbing.

We used this style structure last year, with 30ft long arches. This year with a reduced camp size and after learning much at last year's burn, we are downsizing to 20ft long arches (middle height of 6ft, ground dimensions of 27ft X 10.5ft)

Good things:-light to transport-we didn't have PVC raising up off it's rebar stakes (rebar was 12" long, with 6" in the ground and 6" sticking out) last year, though the tarp was staked down with its own pegs and that may have helped-pretty easy to set up-gives you lots of space underneath- you get a lot of shade coverage out of it (minimum top and 2 sides if you take the tarp to the ground)-in my opinion gives you a happy middle ground between too rigid and too loose, if done right.

No so good things:-does indeed balloon like crazy. Guy lines over the tarp are necessary.-Especially if you go with a larger shape, you need some rigidity between the arches (or as I call "ribs") along the apex. We tied rope along the arches, knotting at each rib, but the whole structure still moved and swayed back and forth. This year we are switching to X shaped crossbar attachments, and joining the apex with 3ft lengths of the same piping.

Other thoughts:- we are using bungee balls this year, to attach our aluminet along the front and back ends of the hoop- we will be roping guy lines over the tarp to reduce ballooning, and securely roping the other ends of the tarp to the both piping and pegs in the ground. There will be 2 rope lines coming out from each end arch to the ground.- switched to aluminet tarping to allow a little more airflow, and ordered it to perfectly fit the dimensions of our structure (last year's was too big which resulted in some bad jimmy rigging)- Overprepare. As others have said bring double to triple ropes, pegs, etc you need and go nuts with securing everything.